CP Book Club - Nov 15 - Modern Romance - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

troutman · 10-16-2015, 09:55 AM

This book seemed to have the most interest . . .

Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern..._Investigation

Ansari and Klinenberg, a professor at New York University, interviewed hundreds of people in various cities around the world, including Wichita, Kansas, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Tokyo,[1] to investigate how the Internet and technology have affected modern love and relationships.[4]

The pair also set up a forum on reddit, "Modern Romantics," soliciting responses to their questions

You can get the hardcover for at least 40% off at Chapters.

troutman · 10-16-2015, 10:00 AM

I would also recommend if you have time, a companion book, Dataclysm. It is more evidence based, where Modern Romance is more anecdotal.

http://dataclysm.org/

Full of wit, insight, and colorful graphics—and written by a true industry insider—Dataclysm reveals and explains how people flirt, fight, love, and hate through Facebook, Google, OkCupid, and Twitter.

Eastern Girl · 10-17-2015, 09:31 AM

Picked up my copy of Modern Romance today, so I'm ahead of the game this time. First time I had been in a Chapters in a long while. It's still rather expensive, but the staff were so much more knowledgeable than I remember. I described a book cover because I couldn't remember the name or author and the chick went and got the book for me. That was the other thing, she said she would go get it and she let me continue browsing, brought the book over. It was much better than I had ever experienced there.

Harry Lime · 10-17-2015, 10:37 AM

A full month will be easier to take part. I'm still working my way through Ready Player One in my free time. Good choices.

Knut · 10-17-2015, 11:37 AM

Loving the Audiobook version of this one so far. Aziz is hilarious and it works well with his comedy background.

I guess you miss out a bit with some of the graphs, but i will try and find them online as I come across them in the book.

woob · 10-19-2015, 09:17 AM

I now know the frustration of not being able to read because my Kindle is on the fritz. I have a replacement on the way, but starting to wonder if I made the right choice.

woob · 10-24-2015, 11:17 AM

troutman, what do you think about scheduling a chat session after each book, where we can all get together and talk about the book "live"?

We could setup a format where each person comes with a question/theory/comment/etc. in mind and could take turns cycling through those to create discussion. Or alternatively, we could send these to you or a chosen moderator ahead of time and they can be responsible for putting them forward as the discussion evolves.

Just an idea.

troutman · 10-26-2015, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woob

troutman, what do you think about scheduling a chat session after each book, where we can all get together and talk about the book "live"?

We could setup a format where each person comes with a question/theory/comment/etc. in mind and could take turns cycling through those to create discussion. Or alternatively, we could send these to you or a chosen moderator ahead of time and they can be responsible for putting them forward as the discussion evolves.

Just an idea.

I have no technical expertise to create a chat session. I leave that to others.

Eastern Girl · 10-29-2015, 08:43 AM

I'd be all right with doing a chat session, but it might be difficult if people are in different time zones. I'm mainly speaking about myself, being two hours ahead of you Calgarians.

We could try and discuss the book as we are reading it. Like maybe on Nov 15, we discuss the first half of the book and then end of Nov, we discuss the last half. Might make for more discussion. I am sure there was stuff in the first half of Ready Player One that got forgotten by the time I finished reading.

Or maybe we just try and tackle one discussion question every few days. We post a question, discuss just that aspect of the book. Then after a few days, post another question. Might keep things going longer.

I think the problem with the last discussion was that we all just posted one long post containing all our thoughts. Might work better, at least if we keep the discussion in this thread and not in a chat session, to post a few discussion questions every few days.

Just some thoughts. Would love to see the discussion last longer this time.

troutman · 10-29-2015, 08:59 AM

Good ideas EG.

http://www.litlovers.com/reading-gui...ansari?start=3

A question to start with:

2. Talk about Ansari's statement that "the whole culture of finding love and a mate has radically changed” in the modern era." In what way...and why? Or maybe you don't really agree with him? If so, why not?

I think there was a lot about this in the first chapters of the book. It used to be people found their partners locally - literally "down the block". The person you married was often someone that lived close to you, and was known by you or your family and friends. People probably didn't have many partners before settling down.

Now, even an average person can meet at least one new person each week through internet dating apps. That would not have been possible 20 years ago. When I was in University, there were no emails or social media. Most of the people I dated were women that I went to school with or worked with. If you were introverted, you could go months without meeting someone or dating.

Now it is easier to meet people, and even carry on long distance relationships (thank you Skype). Maybe it is easier now to meet your most perfect match and have a successful relationship, because your prospect pool is much deeper. The dating apps allow you to filter and search for the kind of person you most want to meet.

I think there is a downside to all these options though - people may give up on relationships too easily, because there are always so many other options available. But the grass is not always greener.

Knut · 10-29-2015, 07:27 PM

I really found it interesting when he was talking to the seniors. I think a few of the ladies they talked to regretted not actually doing more for themselves when they were younger.

Even when i was in University a decade ago you had to meet everyone the traditional way (get drunk at bar/social clubs). I met my wife on a pub crawl (she was a friend of a friend of my cousin) a few years after university, right on the cusp of the social media/texting revolution. I am glad i did as I feel like it would have been one big headache.

About 3 months before this I met a girl at the bar, got her number and then carried on a text conversation for a few days afterwards. A grand total of 8 texts (5 for me and 3 for her) over 2 days. Apparently I was texting her too much and she stopped responding (according to one of her friends). Talk about a headache.

Kids these days do have way more choice and the ease at which you can break off communication/break up with someone really increases the amount of people you interact with. I can see it both working for good and for bad.

I loved the differences between Argentina, Japan and France as well.. but that is probably another topic for later.

A super-confident guy in Japan is living the life ... haha

Eastern Girl · 10-29-2015, 07:34 PM

It's kind of sad that we went from settling for anything to not settling for anything less than the leading wo/man from a rom/com, just one extreme to the other. People just can't get it right.

As an aside, are people enjoying the book? I am not sure how I feel about it. It's not funny enough (IMO) to be a comedy book, but not sciency enough to be a real study of dating cultures. I'll admit, I've only read a little past the first chapter, but the first was very repetitive. I feel like the whole chapter could have been summed up by simply saying, "people married the people that lived in their immediate vicinity." Done. Maybe I'm being picky or my expectations were too high. I'll have to read a bit more to see if I can go the distance with this book.

Knut · 10-29-2015, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

It's kind of sad that we went from settling for anything to not settling for anything less than the leading wo/man from a rom/com, just one extreme to the other. People just can't get it right.

As an aside, are people enjoying the book? I am not sure how I feel about it. It's not funny enough (IMO) to be a comedy book, but not sciency enough to be a real study of dating cultures. I'll admit, I've only read a little past the first chapter, but the first was very repetitive. I feel like the whole chapter could have been summed up by simply saying, "people married the people that lived in their immediate vicinity." Done. Maybe I'm being picky or my expectations were too high. I'll have to read a bit more to see if I can go the distance with this book.

It starts to be more useful in later chapters

Eastern Girl · 11-02-2015, 10:45 AM

Two points I found funny:

- Our ability to drive ourselves mad analyzing the silence after a text message. I can't tell you the number of times I've done this to myself. When I first started dating my boyfriend, I was constantly doing this. Is he not really that interested? Is he playing it cool? Am I being too needy? What does it all mean? In the end, it's just that he's not really into texting, so he tends to read a text and if it doesn't really require an immediate response, he will just talk to me in person about it later. It took me awhile to get to a point where I realized this and didn't just spiral into madness trying to decipher radio silence.

- How a grammatically incorrect text can turn you right off of someone/can help you determine their value as a human being. I definitely judge people. I've been criticized for lengthy texts, but I can't stand the idea of writing in text speak. I hate seeing someone I know to be intelligent write out, "we will C U L8TR." What the hell is that? I can't imagine you save much time, because you have to capitalize some of those letters and then throw a number in there. It's just weird to me. If I were wading in the dating pool again, I would definitely think twice about someone that sent me text speak messages.

Oh and the crude messages part definitely resonated with me. I received a number of gross texts from guys. I remember being really into this co-worker of mine and he finally admitted to liking me so we exchanged numbers so we could start texting one another. His first text to me was about my favorite sexual position.

Any guys realizing that maybe some of their texts may have been a bit forward? Do guys get that they are doing it? I know in the book, he says that guys are doing it because of the slight chance it pays off and the chick is like, "yes, I would love to show you my tits. What's your name again?"

Do you guys ever get that kind of text right off the bat from chicks? It feels like this might be exclusively male territory.

troutman · 11-02-2015, 11:07 AM

Texts from gay men are even more forward. Straight to business.

Texts like that from women are very rare - are these more of a red flag than the gross texts women get from men, and why would that be?

I can't say why men send gross texts, other than once in a blue moon they work? Maybe the act of sending them is a thrill?

I think partners should agree on how often they should text, so no one is left dying for a response.

Eastern Girl · 11-02-2015, 11:25 AM

One other thing that I wanted to touch on, the fact that people prefer texting so they can formulate the best possible response. The woman in the book said that "I'd like to take my time and come up with a response that's genuine." It makes me think that if you are taking your time and going through different drafts of your message, is it really genuine or honest? I get wanting to form a great response that makes you look good, but is that genuine? It's more like how Facebook is the best version of yourself because you edit what people see.

EldrickOnIce · 11-03-2015, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

Two points I found funny:

- Our ability to drive ourselves mad analyzing the silence after a text message. I can't tell you the number of times I've done this to myself. When I first started dating my boyfriend, I was constantly doing this. Is he not really that interested? Is he playing it cool? Am I being too needy? What does it all mean? In the end, it's just that he's not really into texting, so he tends to read a text and if it doesn't really require an immediate response, he will just talk to me in person about it later. It took me awhile to get to a point where I realized this and didn't just spiral into madness trying to decipher radio silence.

- How a grammatically incorrect text can turn you right off of someone/can help you determine their value as a human being. I definitely judge people. I've been criticized for lengthy texts, but I can't stand the idea of writing in text speak. I hate seeing someone I know to be intelligent write out, "we will C U L8TR." What the hell is that? I can't imagine you save much time, because you have to capitalize some of those letters and then throw a number in there. It's just weird to me. If I were wading in the dating pool again, I would definitely think twice about someone that sent me text speak messages.

Oh and the crude messages part definitely resonated with me. I received a number of gross texts from guys. I remember being really into this co-worker of mine and he finally admitted to liking me so we exchanged numbers so we could start texting one another. His first text to me was about my favorite sexual position.

Any guys realizing that maybe some of their texts may have been a bit forward? Do guys get that they are doing it? I know in the book, he says that guys are doing it because of the slight chance it pays off and the chick is like, "yes, I would love to show you my tits. What's your name again?"

Do you guys ever get that kind of text right off the bat from chicks? It feels like this might be exclusively male territory.

Haha. Absolutely yes, and then no. Grammar and spelling are very sexy, long texts are not. The only really redeeming aspect of twitter is that it must be said in 140 characters. So it should be rich but concise. I generally expect that if it takes 3 broken up text messages to get your point across, then I'm going to have to listen to 15 minutes of you telling a story when 2 minutes will do perfectly.

And yes, text-speak is terrible.

Eastern Girl · 11-03-2015, 08:07 AM

Ha, well I'm not that bad with the length of my texts. I create full sentences, instead of shortened text speak "sentences." I think it just seems like my texts are lengthy in comparison to some of the garbage sentences other people text out. I don't typically send multiple texts to complete my thought.

GGG · 11-06-2015, 01:09 PM

I'm only a few chapters in but my historical thoughts on marriage are much more aligned with the pre-Internet / phone dating world. In your life you have goals and you you marry a person who will help you to accomplish those goals. The soulmate / rom com concept I think just leads to problems.

People put up with a lot of crap because they have fallen in love and he's my sole mate. I think you are much better off finding compatibility in terms of habits, goals, finances, expectations first and find the person you love the most out of that pool then finding someone you love first and trying to make the life half of it work.

So I think at least on the surface the old people had it right that the goal was to make your life work first. Now they were restricted by tech and societies expectations of women but the concept of picking someone compatible with your life I think is something that is lost now.

Granted I haven't started dating someone in around 15 years so I'm kinda out of the loop.

Eastern Girl · 11-09-2015, 08:22 AM

Is anyone else struggling through this book? I feel like I am reading a college essay or something. I still feel it's really repetitive. I don't feel like it's telling me anything new or anything that's not common knowledge at this point. I find the jokes are largely silly. I'm more than halfway done, but I feel like I'm reading it at this point to finish it and not because I'm enjoying it. I'm disappointed, because I voted for this book and I like Azziz Ansari.